Jane Blair and the Auric Academy
by Elizabeth de Britannia
Summary: When fate intervenes making a twelve year old girl look 16, school can contain some interesting people...
1. Chapter 1

Jane Blair and the Auric Academy

CHAPTER 1:

Three Old hags Enjoy Coffee

Just like the title suggests, old ladies and coffee are a big part of this story. I mean, without these random old people, there would be no story to tell, and honestly, I like it best that way.  
So now for the explaining part. This is the generally boring part of a book you wish you could skip, but if you did you wouldn't know what the heck was going on.  
My name is Jane Blair. I used to be an average twelve-year-old. But since that Old lady zapped me, I've looked about sixteen.  
And not bad, you know for a teenager. Not even in the mornings anymore. My older sister Meggin used to look like a zombie thing when she got out of bed, and I figured all teens did but I don't. My hair is and was then, blonde, and now never gets tangles. And I haven't had a zit in like, a week; that's a new record. Seriously, since that shriveled hag zapped me, I've looked like some pretty girl with no imperfection  
But how, you ask, did I end up like this? Well the answer's simple and seems to happen with all heroines: I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
You wouldn't think having Starbucks with your friend on a summer afternoon would be the wrong place at the wrong time. We were in a good neighborhood, and Meggin and one of her friends were sitting nearby so my friend and I could have some space.  
We were just talking about the guys we liked and all of a sudden, these shriveled old hags in dresses from like the fifties came in.  
My friend and I were sitting side by side drinking decaf mochas and after ordering they sat at the stools across from us.  
"Well they're a little on the creepy side." My friend whispered to me, moving her stool a little closer to mine.  
Meggin was too busy with her conversation to notice which really annoyed me. Wasn't that why she was there? To make sure three creepy old ladies didn't abduct us.  
:look,: The lady on the left said in a voice so cracked and brittle, I thought it'd somehow break. "Such pretty girls."  
"And healthy too." Said the lady on the right in a voice as cracked and brittle as her companion's.  
"That's silly," Said the middle lady in the voice of a child. "Only the blonde's healthy. You're sight fails you, sister."  
"if anyone's sight is failing them, it's you sister. You are the eldest." Said the lady on the right.  
"My special sight is as sharp as ever. And if anyone's sight has dimmed, it was whomever said that they were pretty." The middle sister countered, dipping her head in the direction of the lady to the left of her.  
"Oh they will be pretty. I wove it out months and months ago." Said the lady on the left confidently. She produced a square of cloth from her handbag and showed it to the other two.  
"Oh let's just take the blonde. Nice and easy." Coaxed the middle lady.  
"Agree." The other two said in unison as if they were entranced.  
And then the niddle lady reached for me. Up until that point, I had been so intrigued by those ladies and there strange talk, but now they were planning to take me.  
And like a smart person at last, I ran for my life. Out of the Starbucks, Out of the mall. Out and away. Down the sidewalk, passing the parking lot and Meggin's car. I ran until I was panting and there was a stitch in my side. Finally after colliding with some dumpsters, I knew I couldn't go any farther.  
So what did I do? I sat my stupid butt down behind the dumpsters and hid.  
"A smelly choice there." I jumped to my feet at the sound of a voice.  
And then my blood ran cold. It was the middle lady.  
"What do you want?" I asked defiantly. "Money, power, the keys to the country of Mexico?"  
"Ah my pretty. I know you have none of these things. But as fate would have it, you will have a new life."  
Then she touched my forehead and I was sixteen.


	2. Chapter 2

Jane Blair and the Auric academy

CHAPTER 2

I meet my sort of brother

Yes that concept is as crazy to me still as it was when my story began. I promise it'll make sense to you in a little bit.  
How can I describe the feeling that came over me when that lady touched my forehead? I felt like my body was being stretched outward, pulled upward, and then pushed back in on itself all at once. It wasn't painful, just a little weird. And so I screamed.  
My scream was muffled by one of the other old ladies putting her hand over my mouth. Whoa, how did she get here? She just seemed to materialize out of thin air.

"Sister. You should have sped up her aging process, not made her scream like all the hounds in hell were after her." Said the lady with her hand over my mouth reproachfully.

"I did no such thing. And if even one hellhound were after this girl, she'd be screaming much louder." The woman who'd touched my forehead retorted.

The third woman handed me a book and said shortly, "The car will be here in five minutes I believe."

Then with a small pop, the three had vanished.

I walked a short way to a bench outside the mall. I sat down and looked at the book. It was black and leather-bound, very old-fashioned; the pages seemed to be made of tree bark. Seriously. Rough, bark with randon things glued in.  
On the first page I found a mirror, and that was how I knew I was sixteen. I stared at my new self my mouth open as if I wanted to catch flies. And then I started to cry. I looked sixteen. Now how was I going to confront my family. What would they say? One day their daughter was twelve and the next sixteen.

I took my hair out of it's ponytail and used it as a curtain to block my face. I hate to admit, I cried like a baby. I was crying so hard, I could hardly breathe.

"Did the Fates screw with your life too?" Said a male voice to my left.

I raised my tear-stained face to look at him.

"Fates?" I asked in a small voice. "If you mean three old hags then yeah."

Guess I gotta give you a ride then." He said indicating a black SUV.

"Ride to where?" I asked, getting to my feet. "And who said anything about giving me a ride anyway?"

"You probably have an address in that book of yours. And those three hags as you so rightly called them commissioned me to drive you soewhere. Hop in sis." He said with a dramatic bow, opening the passenger door.

I got into the car because I had nowhere to go and I guess the spirit of adventure had graced me with it's presence. The man hopped into the driver seat and we were off.

As we drove, I studied the man next to me. He was more of a teenager really, about eighteen. Reddish-gold hair, dark blue eyes. He was good-looking in a roguish sort of way I guess. Very tall.

"There are tissues in the glove compartment, sis." He said keeping his eyes on the road.

This was the third or fourth time he'd called me sis. I didn't even know this kid.

"Look I am not your sister. Quit calling me sis."

"You are my sister. The fates screwed with you, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well they screwed with me too. Therefore we are related. They weave all the family trees in this big cloth, and if you're thread's entwined with anyone else's it can mean that you are related or you've had kids with that person."

"I definitely haven't had any kids."

"Me neither."

I took some tissues and did my best to mop myself up. I took a look in the book's mirror. Still gorgeous.

"So do you have a phone number?" He asked looking at me.

"Okay dude, I'm twelve. And you're like eighteen. And didn't you just say we were related? Not. Going to. Happen." I said, glaring. "And eyes on the road."

"Wow, you're only twelve? You look-" He started but I cut him off.

"Yeah. I look like a teenage supermodel. That's what those hags did to me. Now I can't see my family ever again. What'd they do to you?" I asked.

Flirting obviously forgotten, He looked at me sadly.

"Those hags made my parents abandon me when I was a baby along with my twin brother. Then we were sent floating down the river in a basket. I still don't know why they did that.?

"I'm sorry." I said awkwardly.

"What's done is done. Address?"

"Auric academy." I blurted.

"But I thought you said you didn't know-"

"Yeah. I know it just sort of popped into my head. Can you take me there?"

"Do you even know what the Auric Academy is?" He asked an edge of fear creeping into his voice.

"No."

"Well to be honest, neither do I. The people who run the place are very vague as to what they're school is and what's done there." He said with a shiver.

"It's a school."

"Yeah it's a boarding school for gifted teens. Or at least that's how they put it. Personally I thought it was a psychiatric hospital. But you seem sane enough."

"Well II hope I am sane."

I learned the boy's name was Rom. We spent the next few hours bantering back and fourth. Interesting conversation topics never seemed to run out. We talked about current celebrities and Cleopatra and Greek mythology which he seemed to know a lot about. And we talked about the end of the world.

We talked so much that I forgot my nerves about my final destination but as we drew near, they came back to me.

My feeling must have been betrayed by my face because Rom asked, "You nervous?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yeah."

"Well wouldn't you be nervous if you were going to a place you knew nothing about. A place where the reputation is not good at all."

"I never said it was a crime. And I'm nervous for you. Because we're here."

Author's Note" Please review if you liked this. I would like to thank a lot of people: My friend for always witching at me to keep writing; my dad for editing my rough drafts which is a chore and a half; Michael Scott For creating SNF (which I don't own anything from). I will take posession of Rom and the Fates, although technically they belong to Greece and Rome. And of course I own Jane.


	3. Chapter 3

Jane Blair and the Auric academy

CHAPTER 3

I Enroll at the School of Death

Rom stopped the car in a very average parking lot. I spotted a few cigarette butts strewn around, being scattered to the four winds. As we drew near to the academy, I noticed that we were in a small town which should have been called Rundownville, because everything seemed rundown and shabby, as if the people who owned it had let it sit and forgotten about it. The whole town seemed to be built in the shadow of these dark stone walls, the Auric academy I guessed. It was in front of these walls we'd parked.

"Look Jane," Rom started. "The rep for this place isn't good, so be careful. If you need me for anything just call me." He wrote a phone number down on a tissue and pressed it into my hand.

"Um Yeah," I said awkwardly. "Thanks."

"No problem sis." He said.

Then I got out of the car and he drove away. So now I was alone in front of these scary-looking walls.

I walked up to the open gate and stepped through. With a resounding clang, the gates closed behind me. I shivered. There was something final about that clang.

I walked up to the front door of the school. To get there, I had to climb some marble steps, walk across a blood-red carpet and around a huge marble statue of some dog-headed dude in a kilt. The door was a little weird as well. It was a thick wooden door with an a metal ring in the middle at about waist height. I pulled at the ring and stepped into the school.

I was standing in an entrance hall with standard linoleum floors painted black. Pictures of that guy in the kilt were painted on the walls. The place was all in black and white. At my right I found a door marked office and I went through it into a front office like any other. A grey haired receptionist was typing on a computer lecturing a goth girl who was sitting in a chair by the door playing with her long black braid.

"What were you thinking Morrigan?" The woman asked.

Then she saw me. "May I help you Miss?"

"Um yeah, I think I was sent here by three old ladies and-" she interrupted me.

"What's your name?"

"Jane Blair."

She looked me up and her smile faltered to be replaced by a look of surprise.

"Yes," she said. "It appears you are our newest student."

She reached into a box and pulled out some papers.

"Just your schedule and things. Your uniforms will be at the dorm. I'll call and have Joan help you around for a while."

She made a phone call and a few minutes later a petite girl with short brown hair showed up. She was wearing an ankle-length black skirt and black jacket open over a white shirt. The uniform, I guessed.

"So," said the girl in the chair. "New student?"

"I guess."

"Weird, because we never get new students." She leaned forward, studying me curiously. "Do you know what happened to the last one?"

"Morrigan." Said the petite girl. "She hasn't been here five minutes and you're trying to scare her senseless."

"Not senseless." Morrigan protested. "Come on Joan, have fun for once in your miserable life. It's possible you know."

"I do have fun, Morrigan. My life isn't miserable. And what happened to Christopher and Isabel would scare anyone senseless."

Whoa, had I missed something? Christopher? Isabel? What had happened to them? And what kind of a name is Morrigan?

Then with a cold smile Joan said, "Morrigan, I bid you ado. Jane come on, I'll take you to your dorm."

The campus was a maze of winding sidewalks and old looking buildings, ivy crawling up the walls. Joan didn't say much as we walked, just pointed out buildings here and there, and what they were for.

The dorm was unlike any school building I'd ever seen before. It looked like just an old Victorian house converted into a school building. To get to the building we had to pass through a tunnel, little openings in the wide pillars. Confidently, I strode almost through, but with a small shriek, Joan pulled me back.

"No! Don't ever go through the tunnel all the way. John said it was dangerous." Joan said, gripping my wrist tightly.

"John?"

"Yes John Dee is one of the teachers' favorites. They asked him to come up with a security system for all dorms and ours is the blades. They're concealed one side of the tunnel as you go down."

"So how will we get there?"

"We don't."

Joan pushed open some glass doors I hadn't noticed before and we went inside.

Okay so now among other things I had to remember that tunnels probably equaled blades. No problem. Yep, just an ordinary day in the life of Jane Blair.

The interior of the dorm was bright and airy, the atmosphere seeming out of place among all the dark rooms I was sure this place held.

"Let's see where you are." Joan said, walking over to a plaque on the wall. "Ah, you'll be taking Isabel's place. Which means your roommates will be," She broke off there.

I didn't want any vague answers so I pushed past Joan and located my name on the plaque. The name next to mine read, Virginia.

"Don't you people use last names?" I asked.

"Last names? We don't have them."

"Why not?"

"Don't know. Mr. A says they're the devil."

"Why?"

"He says they tell you who you are."

Then, the weirdest thing happened. I felt dizzy, and for a fraction of a second, I saw Joan, not clad in her weird school uniform, but in armor. Actual armor. All gleaming and silver. It glowed transparently around her, a large broad sword strapped to her back.

"Jane?" Joan asked.

"Y-yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. I think I just had some kind of weird hallucination, I'm okay."

So for the record I was not okay. I'd just seen this girl in weird glowing armor. How the heck could I be okay? I was probably going nuts.  
Joan took me to a dorm of decent size and decorated with two beds. Sprawled out on the one farthest from the window was a tall girl with long black hair and slate-gray eyes.

"What do you want?" She asked Joan in a bored kind of way.

"It looks like we've got a new student." Joan said in wonder.

"So? What's that got to do with me?"

"A lot actually. She's your roommate."

"Joan, we haven't had a new student since Isabel."

"I know."

I didn't want to interrupt but these girls' secretive behavior was really getting to me.

"So this is the Virginia I'll be living with? And who's Isabel and why is talking about her all hush, hush?"

"Jane, that will be explained later. And yes, this is Virginia."

So great, just great. I was taking the place of some girl no one talked about. Then Joan made a hasty retreat saying I should get into my uniform, leaving me alone with this Virginia girl. The dorm room really was nice. There were two small closets, a little bathroom, the beds, a desk and night stands, and an awesome looking cushioned window-seat.

"You might want to hurry." Virginia advised. "Dinner's in less than an hour I think. You might want to hurry."

I was always very good at getting ready fast. It comes from being late for school almost every morning I guess. I wasn't in much of a rush now. I went into the bathroom, showered, and got dressed in the uniform. It felt weird to wear a long skirt like this.

The cafeteria was a large place, five long tables the only furniture in the room. Platters of food were set up in the middle of the tables as students arrived. At one point I realized that I'd lost Virginia. Somehow this didn't surprise me. So I just sat my butt down wherever I pleased.

"Hey Nic!" The brown-haired boy who sat next to me yelled across the cafeteria. "Get over here!"

The boy smiled mischievously pointing at the seat next to him.

"Billy." A tall Italian looking kid had come over. "What have I told you about that awful nickname? My name is Niccollo."

"Sorry Nic. But we aren't in class now so it shouldn't matter."

"Billy," Nic sighed. "My name is grander than some nickname you and Scatty came up with."

"Hey!" Billy was indignant. "I made that one up. Scatty only took credit."

I smiled. Their friendly banter reminded me that this was not some insane asylum but an honest to God high-school with actual kids. Even if that Nic kid was weird.  
Dinner was pretty uneventful. The food was actually decent, not like the crap we ate at my old school. I managed to find my way to the dorm. How you may ask? Well, I just followed the wave of girls which took me right where I needed to go. I was tired, so I went to my closet to look for something to sleep in. To my surprise, I found some of my clothes had been put there, and they looked like they'd fit me. Including, I add now, my favorite funky pink PJs. Like a weirdo, I stuck my nose in the folds of them. Home. I was smelling my old life. I changed into them and got into my bed. Virginia was already lying down. I wanted to sleep but before I did, there was something I had to know.

"Virginia?" I asked.

"Yes." She said sleepily, pushing her pillow into a more comfortable shape.

"What happened to Isabel?"

"Oh her," Virginia yawned. "Well she's dead, I think."

Author's note: "Hi it's Elizabeth. Sorry it took so long to update, I guess I've been holding out. So I do not own anything except Jane, the rest belongs to Michael Scott, my favorite author. My father is awesome for editing my probably awful spelling. So now down to business I want to dedicate this chapter to my best friend. Happy birthday! I hope this topped my last gift.

So as the french say, Au revoir.

Pretty please read and review!

Sincerely,  
Elizabeth de Britannia


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